Black Tuesday

Originally Broadcast 11/23/2009:

Jim Kirchherr looks back on a day know in St. Louis history as “Black Tuesday” with St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Tim O’Neil. On Tuesday, November 28, 1939, St. Louisians awoke to find a thick, black fog hovering over the city. The reason was no mystery; nearly everything in the city at that time was heated by soft coal from southern Illinois, which gave off a thick, black smoke when burned. Still, this day was one of the worst ever, and lead to the eventual banning of the use of soft coal by mayor Bernard F. Dickmann. Dickmann would lose the next election, but the city engineer responsible for requesting the ban—Raymond Tucker—would eventually become a three-term mayor of the city.